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@degrowthuk@mstdn.social
2024-04-01 22:05:59

Some hard facts for the eco-techno-optimists from the always well researched Low Tech magazine.
"Unfortunately, the planned switch to low-carbon energy sources and the electrification of heating and transport technologies will not decrease our dependency on the steel industry – on the contrary."

The high steel intensity of low carbon power sources confronts us with a so-called “catch-22”, a situation in which there seems to be no escape from a problem no matter what we do. We need much more steel if we replace thermal power plants with renewable ones. Because there is not enough steel scrap available, we can only produce that extra steel from iron ore in blast furnaces burning fossil fuels. To address climate change, we need to build low-carbon sources quickly and in great numbers. How…
The continuous growth of the steel output – the increasing steel intensity of human society – makes sustainable steel production impossible. No technology can change that because it’s not a technological problem. Like forestry can only be sustainable if the wood demand does not exceed the wood supply, steel is sustainable or not depending on the balance between (scrap) supply and (steel) demand. We may not be able to escape the Iron Age, but we have an option to escape the catch-22 that inextri…

How to Escape From the Iron Age?
We cannot lower carbon emissions if we keep producing steel with fossil fuels.